An Approach for Documenting Historic Drinking Water Troughs of Karachi, Pakistan

Abstract

Water troughs of Karachi were considered beautiful pieces of architecture during early nineteenth century. Most of them have been constructed of Gizri stone (a famous construction material not used now) and followed variety of European construction style that was very popular in Karachi, during the annexation. These were considered the unique urban element of their time which facilitated the poor and laborious workers of Karachi. Karachi’s water trough has lost their identity and utility, due to the usage of electrical pumps, usage of mechanized cars and minimum usage of animal-driven carts. At present, most of the troughs have already demolished and are continued to disappear due to the unavailability of documented or archival records. Traditional/empirical method such as simple hand/tape measurement has now becomes an obsolete technique in documentation practice and it should be rejected at local level. The aim of this research is to introduce the systematic documentation practices; involving total station for the measurement of these historic drinking water troughs at local level. In addition, documentation is often the last means of preservation of a property, when a property is to be demolished, its documentation provides future researchers access to valuable information that otherwise would be lost. This research becomes the basis for formulating standards or guidelines about the recognized documentation practices, which will be followed in future documentation exercises. This research can also help in formulating future line of action for developing a concrete conservation and heritage protection program for the historic drinking water troughs of Karachi.